Best Permit & Campsite Alert Apps in 2026
Sold-out permits and campgrounds leak inventory constantly as people cancel. A whole category of tools exists to catch those openings, and they are genuinely different from each other. Here is an honest rundown of the main options in 2026, including where each one is the right choice. Yes, we make one of them. We will tell you when to use the others.
The quick answer
Match the tool to what you are chasing:
- Wilderness permits and lotteries (Half Dome, Whitney, Enchantments, river permits): PermitSnag
- Free campground alerts in the US: Campflare
- Free alerts on any Rec.gov permit, including river and rafting permits: PermitAlert
- Camping in Canada (BC Parks, Parks Canada, Ontario Parks): Campnab
- One-off SMS tracker for a single popular permit, or international permits like New Zealand's Great Walks: Outdoor Status
- Broad campground and timed-entry coverage on a flat annual price: CampScanner
- Done-for-you campsite booking, pay only when it works: Arvie
- Native mobile apps with an AI trip-planning assistant: Outdoorithm
PermitSnag: permits and lotteries first
PermitSnag tracks 623 US wilderness permits (Recreation.gov, California and Utah state parks, BLM, NPS) plus 118,000+ campsites. The difference from everything else on this list is the lottery layer: a master calendar of every application window, open/close/result reminders, group lottery pools, and published odds pages built from official statistics. Alerts go out by push, SMS, email, and browser notification, with Fast Lane links that land you at booking with your dates selected. Free tier includes one alert with hourly scans. Pro is $7.99/month (or $79.99/year) with roughly one-minute scans and unlimited watches. A single permit costs $12 a la carte.
Campflare: the best free option for campgrounds
Campflare covers 10,000+ US campgrounds, scans popular ones as often as every 15-45 seconds, and is completely free with email and text alerts plus an iOS app. If your problem is a booked-out car campground, start here. What it does not do: wilderness permits, lotteries, quotas, or trailhead spots. Plenty of people run Campflare for campgrounds and PermitSnag for permits side by side.
PermitAlert: free, and it covers river permits
PermitAlert scans every permit on Recreation.gov, including river and rafting permits that most competitors skip, every 60 seconds, and texts you when a spot opens. It is free, funded by optional $5, $10, or $15 donations, and needs no account for a basic alert. What it does not do: lottery tooling, campsite tracking, or anything beyond SMS.
Campnab: strongest in Canada
Campnab is the veteran of campsite cancellation scanning, covering 3,200+ parks and 7,000+ campgrounds across the US and Canada, with some permit and day-use scanning too. Memberships run CAD $10-30/month for 3-7 concurrent scans, and one-off pay-per-use scans cost $10-20 each. Its Canadian coverage (BC Parks, Parks Canada, Ontario Parks) is the best available, which makes it the clear pick north of the border.
Outdoor Status: per-permit SMS trackers
Outdoor Status sells cancellation trackers for popular permits at roughly $15 each, delivered by text, with solid coverage of marquee US destinations plus some international ones (New Zealand Great Walks, Canadian backcountry). It is simple and it works. The trade-offs: SMS only, no lottery tooling, and per-permit pricing that adds up fast if you watch more than one thing per season.
CampScanner: broad coverage from the Harvest Hosts network
CampScanner, built by Harvest Hosts, scans 200,000+ campsites across 9,600+ campgrounds and 2,000+ parks, plus timed entry permits and day passes. Annual plans run from $39 (5 scans, 15-minute checks) to $79 (15 scans, 5-minute checks). No wilderness permit lottery tooling, and you pay more for faster scanning or more concurrent watches.
Arvie: done-for-you campsite booking
Arvie is different from the rest of this list: its AgentBook feature tries to auto-book a cancelled campsite for you, live, and only charges a flat $19 fee when it actually succeeds. It claims a 65% win rate across 4,700+ parks. There is also a free tier and a $5-per-scan Alert Me option if you'd rather book it yourself. No lottery tooling, campsites only.
Outdoorithm: native apps and an AI assistant
Outdoorithm scans campgrounds across 44 reservation systems with real iOS and Android apps, a usable free tier (1 alert, 5-15 minute scans), and an AI trip-planning assistant called Camp Sage. Paid tiers run $12.99 to $19 a month for more alerts, faster scans, and SMS. It is backed by a nonprofit arm, Outdoorithm Collective. No wilderness permit lottery tooling.
Pro tip: alerts are half the game
Whichever tool you pick, speed of response matters more than speed of scanning. Have the reservation site logged in on your phone, know your party size and dates cold, and act within minutes. High-demand cancellations are often rebooked in under ten minutes.
How to compare them yourself
Before committing to any alert service, check:
- Does it cover your specific permit or campground? Coverage lists differ more than marketing suggests.
- What channels does it alert on? SMS beats email when a spot lasts minutes.
- How many things can you watch at once, and what does that cost?
- Does it help before the lottery (calendars, reminders, pools) or only after (cancellations)?
Conclusion
There is no single best alert app, but there is a best one for your trip. Campflare or PermitAlert for free alerts, Campnab for Canada, CampScanner for broad flat-rate coverage, Arvie if you want the booking done for you, Outdoorithm for native apps, Outdoor Status for a one-off permit text, and PermitSnag when permits and lotteries are the mission. See the full feature-by-feature breakdown for each one on the PermitSnag alternatives hub.